This description relates to matching accounts identified in two different sources of account data. As shown in FIG. 1, typical data processing systems 10 produce outputs 12 by applying specified processes 14 to internal data values 16 that represent internal data concepts 18 having particular meanings 20. At least some of the internal data values can be derived from input data values 22 provided by one or more data sources 24 using mappings 26 that address the fact that input data values available from the sources represent input data concepts 28 that have meanings 30 that may not directly match the meanings of the internal data concepts intended by the developer of the system. The mappings are predefined when the system is built—based on the characteristics of the data sources and the data values that they provide—and remain unchanged to assure that, for example, numerical outputs generated by the system conform to the intentions of the designer of the system.
For example, a system may be designed to use an internal data concept of “annual percentage rate (APR) of interest on a credit card debt.” The system may use that internal data concept in a computational process that generates an output representing an “annualized cost of the interest based on the current balance” by multiplying internal data values for an “APR” internal data concept by internal data values for an “outstanding-balance” internal data concept. For this purpose, the system needs to determine the internal data values based on input data values.
In this example, suppose that there are two sources (source A and source B) of input data values related to the APR internal data concept and that neither of the sources may be expected always to provide input data values that square exactly with the developer's intended meaning of the APR internal data concept although one or the other of both of them may provide useful information related to that internal data concept. Based on characteristics of sources A and B and the data values that they provide, the developer may decide to attribute to the APR internal data concept the meaning “the higher of the APRs provided by source A and source B.” The designer in typical known systems would then specify a corresponding, unchanging mapping from the data values provided by sources A and B to the data values for APR to be used by the system in producing the output.
Input data values related to an internal data concept can be obtained from sources external to the system, such as a data vendor, or internal to the system, such as a company's own databases of enterprise resource planning information, financial information, or customer relationship management information, among others.